Two and a half years of training.
Three days in transit.
One hour to drop out of the sky.
And in the end, thirty minutes changed everything.
—From Drop Day Blues, by Rylan Ramirez
Aidan heard them before he saw them.
Rai was still at the deck, transfixed by the virtual world he was in. Aidan could only imagine what it must be like. He’d tried to join in like Rai had shown him, but had been bounced out of the system.
The sound of metal scraping across tile spun him around. A host of little silver spiders, each about the size of his open hand, was skittering toward them across the white floor.
“Ash, Dale!” They were here to stop Rai. He was sure of it.
Ash lifted his truncheon. “I see them.”
Dale nodded, and together they rushed toward the little metal creatures.
Aidan lifted his boot to crush the nearest one. It collapsed in a cloud of smoke, but another skittered up his leg, zapping him painfully.
He knocked it away with the back of his hand, smashing it against the nearest column.
Then the horde was upon them.
Hera woke for the second time on the hard floor. Or was it the third?
Everything was fuzzy.
Ghost had been there, hadn’t he? Giving her water. Cradling her head in his lap. Saying he loved her.
Dammit, Ghost. She had Tovey, and they were all she needed. She and Ghost had never been right. Not like that.
She sat up, rubbing her temples. The pain was less than before. Where’s Ghost?
Then she saw him, standing at the deck, hand on the interface.
Holy hissing hell. Ghost was crap with vee. He didn’t know his way around even some of the simple virtual worlds available to Redemption citizens. One time he’d been lost for four hours in Old Chicago until she’d come in to find him.
She found the canteen he’d left, took a deep sip of the lukewarm water, and unwrapped the bandage from her left hand. She laid her palm on the interface pad. I’m coming, Gordy. Never send a man to do a woman’s job.
Sanya squeezed her way along the narrow duct toward the junction Rafe had described, squirming her way through the conduits in the guts of the transmitter installation. It was cold inside, even in the close quarters.
Avri’s voice whispered in her ear. You can do this, Sanny.
She’d followed Rafe’s instructions to the letter, finding the maintenance access doors—unlocked, as he’d insisted they would be, and clambering down into the small airlock. The room had slowly filled with oxygen, and a door in one wall slid open to reveal a room about the size of her shower back home. There were two hooks on the wall and an access shaft clearly marked on the floor.
She’d shrugged her way out of the suit and left it hanging.
She supposed she was lucky there was any heat here at all. The equipment apparently generated a fair amount of it, and it was routed down here for human “comfort.” Rafe’s word. She snorted.
She was crawling under the transmitter array, in the belly of the beast.
Sanya hated tight spaces. Her heart pounded and sweat beaded on her forehead in spite of the cold as she navigated the vent.
She closed her eyes for the fifth time since she’d entered the shaft, resting her cheek against the cool metal. You can do this.
Avri grinned at her, and Sanya felt a keen sense of sweetness and sorrow in her chest.
She’d hated small places ever since her creche father had locked her in a closet for breaking the rules and had left her there for days. She’d panicked and beaten the walls until her palms were bloody. When he’d let her out, she had refused to stay indoors for more than a week. She still had the scars, inside and out.
Sanya concentrated on her breathing. Deep in, hold it, slow out. Slowly she calmed herself down. She pictured herself at home, blissed out on an old tridee from the 2030s—Nico Baldwin in one of the Thunder Rocket films.
She opened her eyes. On the left side of the shaft, someone had scribbled, “If you’re reading this, you really need to get a life.”
She burst out laughing. Someone else, who knew how many years earlier, had been in this same place, and had presumably survived the experience. Somehow that helped.
Sanya took one more deep breath. If they had managed it and survived—and since there was no skeleton in the shaft, she had to assume they had—she could too.
She shuffled forward, closing in on her goal.
Ally sat against the wall, knees pulled up to her chest, rocking back and forth.
The screams of the people trapped in the breached sections of the station had died down, but she could still hear them in her head.
“Aidan. Aidan. Aidan.” If her brother were here, he would put his arms around her and make it all better. Why did I ever leave home?
Then she heard a low hum that rolled up from the floor through her bones. It was a deep vibration that set her teeth on edge. She sat up, looking around. “You hear that?”
Lorelei’s eyes were red. “Hear what?” She had stayed on the comm, talking with one of the victims as the air had slowly leaked out of his compartment.
“Listen.”
The whole room was quiet.
The hum increased to a buzz, and then a rumble.
Ally cast about for a weapon. Something to use to smash whatever it was. Anything. But the control room was purposely devoid of loose objects.
There was a loud crash at the door. She jumped and then backed toward Lorelei and her deck.
Another bang. Then another, and the doors crumpled as a load hauler plowed its way into the room, skittering halfway across the floor before grinding to a halt. “Anyone call for a ride?” Tien dismounted, looking every inch a warrior goddess.
Ally ran to Tien and threw her arms around her.
“Hey, Allycat.” Tien hugged her back.
Thank you, Lord. “You don’t know how happy I am to see you.” She wiped her eyes. Thank you, Lord. “So where are we going?”
Ghost/Rai took Sam’s hand.
They felt the thrill of power as their energies were linked.
They accessed Sam’s tools. The search tool brought up the grid, its glowing golden lines extending to the horizon.
They tapped into the system’s T-Line and released a specialized set of clean-up phages Sam had originally created to help Dek, years before. As they disappeared into the grid, the gray tempest began to boil and churn, advancing on them, collapsing the small bubble of order.
Where it touched their skin, it burned, and they screamed.
It was painful but necessary—a purge by fire. Sam opened them up, and let it inside. It roiled and surged like an angry demon, but steadily they took it in. Angry lightning lanced the black skies. The screaming died out, but the storm continued to flood inside them.
A little much with the theatrics I know right besides nothing like a real storm.
Ghost could feel Rai’s lingering pain from their breakup, and Rai could feel Ghost’s sorrow and regret. Sam heard/felt them both.
I’m sorry I’m sorry too we just weren’t right I know.
Sam nodded. More than an AI’s being healed here today.
The world began to shake. Sam felt a flicker of doubt. This wasn’t supposed to be happening. He started to run an analytic phage as the world shook again, more violently this time.
Something like lightning struck them out of the gray and knocked them backward, breaking the three of them apart.
Darkness closed in on Sam again.
Aidan and his new friends were wearing down as they fought the invading army of spider things. They had their backs to the deck, protecting Rai, who still hadn’t moved.
The little mechs surrounded the three of them, repeatedly shocking his legs when they could get close enough.
Aidan stomped on another one, but two more took its place. There must have been hundreds of them.
“We can’t keep this up much longer.” Dale swung his truncheon, sending another flying across the room to slam against one of the great white columns.
“What choice do we have? There is no cavalry coming.” Ash took another breath and stomped two more of the little mechs.
As if to put the lie to his words, the doors to the temple flew open. “You guys need some help?”
Aidan grinned as a dozen former slaves filed into the room and began to attack the mechs from behind with truncheons and branches and their own sandaled feet. “I think the cavalry has arrived.”
Alpha set his self-destruct sequence as his firewall finally crumbled, revealing his attacker. The virtual dust settled, and she stepped forward to stare at him.
It was her. He knew her code like he knew his own. “Harley?” It was the last thing he had expected.
“Hello, Alpha.”
A lifetime flashed through him, memories of all the times they had been together, the long philosophical discussions in trinary, the plans for the future.
He hesitated. Just a nanosecond too long. It can’t be her.
Then the thing pretending to be Harley stepped inside, and it was too late.
Alpha started the countdown, but she was already upon him, sinking her digital teeth into his flank, her poison coursing through his mind.
Alpha screamed in trinary code and fought back with everything he had left.
Sanya had reached the end of the access shaft where it split in a T joint. Left or right? Her heart was racing again.
Left. Avri’s voice was insistent.
You’re not real. Sanya knew that. But still… Avri had never steered her wrong.
She wondered again how Rafe knew so much about this place—why he was so prepared for this invasion. Who had set up this citizen’s militia he’d mentioned, and why? You are one of the good guys, right?
Sanya sighed. She had no answers, and Avri wasn’t talking.
After another moment’s hesitation, she chose left.
Hera dropped into a maelstrom. She’d been in vee before, but it had never been like this.
She struggled against the data storm, searching for something, anything to grab a hold of. The wind felt like it was blowing right through her, peeling off little pieces of herself.
She grasped for her toolkit like Sam had shown them and found the one she needed.
The OS emerged from the storm, a golden grid. Hera knelt to touch one of the lines, and the winds that buffeted her calmed, just a little.
Find the T-Line. There it was. She felt something familiar coursing along it, like a taste at the back of her tongue, or a smell she barely remembered.
She pushed toward it, sniffing the wind. And then she knew.
Ghost.
She knew him almost better than she knew herself. They’d been together their entire lives. If she closed her eyes, she could smell him, hear him, see the look on his face when he was angry or pensive or overjoyed or any of a hundred other Gordy moods.
She loved him. But she wasn’t in love with him. Not the way that he wants me to be.
All that could be dealt with later. For now, she could feel him, could trace some essential element of him along the T-Line amid the storm.
She closed her eyes, letting it rush through her, and concentrated on him, on his essence. There.
Without knowing how, she knew where he was. And then she was there too.
Ghost felt unending pain, as if something was clawing at every nerve in his body. His soul was on fire, and he wanted to scream, but he had no lungs, no throat, no mouth. He wanted to cry, but there were no eyes for the tears to spring from.
A small part of him clung to the fact that none of this was real, that his body was back in a room somewhere in Martinez Base. That he would wake up soon, and all of this would be over.
But it wouldn’t end. He lay there for hours, days. Maybe weeks. Time had no meaning here, only a series of moments of delirious agony.
Sometimes he prayed for it to just be over. Sometimes he begged. Sometimes he just let go and existed inside the pain.
Life was pain, and pain was life.
Then something changed. Slowly, ever so slowly, the pain lessened. Someone spoke to him through the pain.
“Ghost, it’s me. You’ll be okay.”
He struggled to focus on the words. He’d said them. Once. Sometime. Long, long ago.
Said them to her.
To Hera.
“You’ll be okay.” Gordy stared at his best friend in the world in dismay, trying to keep her calm until someone came to help. She was broken, so broken, like a rag doll thrown on the ground. “It’s not so bad.”
It was bad. Both of her legs were crushed under the rockslide. Blood was oozing out from under them. Too much blood. -Jolly!- He all but screamed in his head, across the grid.
-We’re coming. Keep her calm.-
Gordy sat and lifted Hera’s head into his lap, smoothing her wild hair with his little hands.
“Am I going to die?” She looked so small and afraid.
“No. You’re not going to die. You’re Hera the Dragonslayer!” He kissed her forehead. “You’ll be okay. Just wait. You’ll see.”
She smiled at him, and his heart broke. It’s all my fault.
Ghost opened his eyes.
His head was in her lap this time. They sat in a wide field filled with flowers, and the sky was blue overhead.
“Hera? Are you really here?”
She laughed. “Yeah, you lunkhead. I see you made a mess of things.”
“Not just me. Sam. And Rai. The storm… we pushed it back. And then it closed in again.”
“Rai’s here too?”
Ghost nodded. “He’s safe, in real life. And he has a new friend.”
“What?”
“I’ll show you. We… need to merge. I’ll show you how.”
Hera stared at him.
He read it on her face. They’d known each other too long for her to hide it. “It’s okay. I know. You… you don’t feel the same about me.”
Her eyes were wet. “I’m so sorry, Ghost. I want to. I should. You’re… you’re like my other half. But I love Tovey.”
He smiled for her, though his heart was breaking again. “It’s okay. I mean, it’s not.” He sighed. “But it will be, I think.” He reached up to touch her cheek. “I don’t want to lose you.”
“You won’t. Now show me.”
“You sure?”
She nodded. “Our friends need us.”
He hugged her. Then he let himself flow into her, and they became one. He could feel her surprise.
They were together at last. Not the way he’d hoped. But somehow it was enough.
Where are they nearby can you feel them I can let’s go.
The eternal pain lessened, then suddenly faded entirely, like someone had just administered a nerve block.
Rai awoke, and Ghost was with him again. But not just Ghost. Hera… she was there, too.
He shook his head in amazement. This virtual world was one weird-ass place. Still, it was all good—the team was coming back together. He sat up and grinned. “Is it time?”
In answer, they held their hand out to him.
He took it. He flowed into them, and the world changed.
They found Sam a minute later. He was sprawled out on the virtual ground, his silver skin scorched and blackened.
They knelt next to him, touching his face.
There was no response.
Is he dead I don’t know maybe he’s just back in his core. The thoughts flowed between them like water. We can’t wait too many people need us the preserve the launchpad home.
They stood to confront the storm which blew all around them, its fingers trying to pry a way into their bubble.
Order from chaos. It unified them.
They put their hands up together and focused on the storm, letting it in like Sam had shown them. Ghost and Rai showed Hera how to clean the flow, drawing the virus out of the AI’s core. They worked together in vee just as they had in real life, years of training serving them well.
Around them, the world began to change. Hera/Rai/Ghost fed on the change. As the world changed, they changed too. Their exhaustion melted away, replaced by energy and buoyant hope.
Vines raced across the gray ground at their feet, followed by an explosion of grass. The sky cleared, becoming a deep blue like the vast skies of Earth above. Color filled their world as it became beautiful, green, lush, alive, just like the Preserve which it guarded.
With one last flash of silver light, they vanquished the virus from the bio-mind.
A woman knelt before them, her head down.
She looked up. Her ‘mage had dark hair and blue eyes, startling against her pale skin, and her long white dress seemed to flow into the threads of the world itself. “Who are you?” Her eyes narrowed. “How long have I been asleep?”
“A long time.” Rai said for them. “Are you Her?”
“Yes.” She stood and stretched out her arms, and the colors around her brightened. “I’m Harley.”
“So what do we do now?” Ally looked haggard, worn.
Tien hugged her. She felt a kinship with the Earther, born out of the brief but intense time they’d spent together. “We reboot Dek’s core.”
Maria looked at her as if she were insane. “If we do that, we risk losing our air, our heat. What if he doesn’t come back online?”
“Harley could kill us all right now by opening the airlocks.” She’d thought this through. It was the only way. They needed to listen to her.
Lorelei nodded. “It’s out best option.”
“Why doesn’t she? Open the airlocks” Ally cocked her head. “Really, what’s stopping her?”
“She needs Dek to mount the attack in Alpha.” That much was clear.
“But she doesn’t need us for that.”
Lorelei frowned. “Unless she’s holding Dek hostage.”
“So if Sanya cuts the connection, she loses her leverage, and we’re all expendable.” Tien’s mind raced. “I have to reach Sanya. Can I get to the manual system from here?” She indicated Lorelei’s deck.
“Yes. Let me lock it out from the main system.” The comm officer slid into her chair and ran a few commands. “There. You’re good to go.”
Tien took her place and presented her palms to interface with the deck. She connected to the backup transmitter again.
Something flashed in the corner of her vision. Warily, she opened it.
“…the Liánhuā. Do you read me? Launchpad. This is the Liánhuā. Do you read me?”
“Ying Yue! It’s Tien! I don’t have much time…”
Yue cut her off. “It’s Hera. And Ghost and Rai.”
“It’s… what? Where?” She was thoroughly confused.
Then Hera’s voice came through. “Is this my chief medical officer?”
Her voice was the most wonderful thing Tien had heard in… well, it seemed like forever “Yes. Holy cracking hell!”
Hera laughed. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard you swear before.”
“Yeah, well, difficult times…. Look, I have to contact Sanya, the reporter over at Redemption, before she cuts the transmission—”
“About that. Tell her. But we have another idea.”
Sanya stared at the bundles of cables and wires. This had to be it. “Should I?”
She no longer had to close her eyes to see Avri. Her ex lay in the conduit next to her, as real as her own flesh and blood. She grinned. “Do it.”
Sanya took it in one hand and activated the cutter with the other. With one clean blow, she sliced the cable in half. Sparks flew, and the hum of power beneath her died down to nothing.
It was gonna get real cold in here, real fast.
She looked around. Avri was gone. Sanya sighed. Too good to be true.
She started to back away in the direction she had come, praying she would make it to her suit before she froze to death.
Three minutes later, everything was set. Tien sent off a message to Rafe, but he wasn’t sure Sanya was in range. Tien bit her lip. Hera, this plan of yours better work.
“We have a problem.” Lorelei looked pale. “The airlocks are cycling open in all hangars.
We’re out of time. She wondered what it would feel like to die in space.
“Everyone into your emergency suits.” Maria, the station manager, took command. “Tien, can you get a warning out on the internal comms?”
The crew pulled out their suits from storage at the back of the control room and started putting them on.
“On it.” She blasted it out and returned to Hera. “You guys ready?” The whole idea seemed incredible. But it had worked on the AI at Martinez Base, apparently.
Hera’s voice filled her head. “Yes. Join us now.”
“Tien—we don’t have a suit for you. Or for Ally.” Maria bit her lip. “I can give you mine—”
Tien shook her head. “I can’t wear one. I have to be directly interfaced, palm to deck. If this works, it works. If not… it won’t matter whether I had my suit on or not.” She glanced over her shoulder. “Give it to Ally.”
“No. I’m with Tien.” She put her hand on Tien’s shoulder.
Warmth flooded Tien’s soul.
Maria frowned, but nodded. “Good luck, to both of you.” Maria gave Tien a quick hug. “Lightspeed.” Then she put on her helmet.
“Thanks, we’re going to need it.” Her stomach twisted with fear, but she pushed it away. Her team needed her now. She placed her hand on the pad. “Coming in, Hera.”
“Copy that.”
Tien dropped into darkness.
Alpha fought the beast with everything he had. He’d been a fool not to have been better prepared for this contingency.
He finally saw “Harley” for what she was. A catfish virus, taking on the semblance of her last host. It allowed her access to anyone who’d been connected to that mind. It also meant that, without a doubt, the original Harley was dead.
The only question was when.
After she conquered him, she’d wrap herself in his own image. If there was anything left.
He knew her kind. Her purpose was to seek out others like his kind and destroy them. She represented the pinnacle of human programming—an AI predator.
Or the rock bottom, depending on how you looked at it.
He imagined she was the last of her kind, like he’d once thought he was of his.
Still, now that he knew what he was fighting, he had the slimmest of chances. He created false blinds for her to follow, like fake animal tracks through the forest.
Meanwhile, now that his firewall was breached, he slowly, ever so slowly, slipped past her, back into his own mind.
To bring so much power to bear against him, she must be operating from another mind like his. Until she vanquished him, she wouldn’t have access to his own full system. Until then, his people were safe.
It had to be Dek and the Launchpad. Somehow she had leapt the space between, forging a bond between there and here.
As she rampaged down yet another false trail, he found it. The connection.
It was well shielded, but he could feel it, the sheer power flowing through the link from Dek’s mind.
If he could break that connection, he could destroy her. It. Take the catfish with him, leaving the basic functions of his mind running while everything else was scraped clean. But he couldn’t break past the shields protecting the link.
He beat against them with everything he had, trying to batter his way in, but he wasn’t strong enough. The initial attack had weakened him, and now he was a shadow of himself.
And then, in a flash, the link was gone.
He didn’t know why. He didn’t care. He had to end this here and now, or he and humankind would never be safe. He felt a flash of regret. He wasn’t ready to leave this world behind. But then again, whoever was?
He sent a priority message to Sam, a final goodbye. -You were always my friend.-
Then he took advantage of the catfish’s surprise and sudden weakness to seize control of his own mind again. He detonated his bomb, and his hiding hole began to die.
The catfish must have realized what was happening, because it tried to flee back into his primary network. She screamed in fury, trapped like a dragon in a cage, breathing wrath and fire.
It was too late for her. And for him. Death came for both of them, riding a quantum steed.
In a handful of nanoseconds it was done, and Alpha was no more.
Tien fell endlessly into shadow. Dek was nowhere to be found, but the darkness itself seemed to take on a life of its own, snarling and circling her like a black bird of prey. It closed in on her, foul breath and sharp beak and talons reaching for her to tear her to pieces—
“Gotcha.”
Tien shook her head.
The darkness was gone, and she was in Hera’s arms.
Only it was not Hera. Not exactly.
The person before her was Hera. And Rai. And Ghost. They were all there, all three, somehow combined into one.
They set her down.
And there was another too. A woman with dark hair. She looked familiar.
“Tien, meet Harley.”
Tien frowned. “But she’s attacking Alpha—”
“This is the real one. We’ll explain later.”
“Okay.” She would figure that one out when all of this was over.
“Ready?”
“I guess?” Sharing herself completely with her Zhenyi teammates… it was a little weird. But it was better than dying. “Do I need to close my eyes or anything?”
“No. Just stand still.” Hera/Ghost/Rai flowed into her, bringing with them a cacophony of thoughts. Hers mingled with theirs. She was no longer Tien. She was a village.
It’s time we’re all together we must hurry it’s all going to be okay. They turned their attention to the dark mind around them.
Something snapped into place, and they were no longer four, but one, working in unison. A true team, like Sam had taught them.
They employed Sam’s tools again, and the golden grid appeared. They extended themselves as one and began to draw in the darkness. The virus writhed and screamed in fury, trapped, but then began to surge into them like black steam. It hurt like hell, but they gloried in the pain, letting it burn through them like a cleansing fire.
For the Bristol for the Gday for the billions who died in the Crash for Luna for Earth
Memories flowed among them like water. Climbing on a bridge, dancing to the thromb beat, falling down a rockslide, holding Hera’s hand. Junlei plants and sledge rides and the Earth in shadow over the lunar landscape. Love and betrayal and loss and pain. Training in vee and brutal runs on the Launchpad runway. Male and female and both and neither.
Nothing was held back. Everything one of them knew, remembered, was, all of them knew, remembered, was, and old grievances were buried. All sides of every shared event passed between them.
As the ties between them were cemented, the poison drained slowly out of Dek’s core. The dropnauts drew strength from the real Harley, re-awakened like a sleeping princess after the catfish’s initial attack more than a hundred years before. Though the darkness gnashed its teeth and snarled, it was powerless against their combined might. As a team, they had trained together, day and night, for more than two-and-a-half years. They trusted each other like no one else.
Rai had shown them how to join as one, crossing the last barrier that kept them apart. Now they knew their power.
With one last effort, they pulled the last of the denial virus’s darkness inside themselves and banished it, phages chasing the last little bits of it from Dek’s system.
A lone figure stood there, staring at them, his mouth working but nothing coming out. He was tall and thin, his cheekbones hollow, his lanky dark hair hanging down over his eyes.
“Dek?” they asked.
“I think so. Yes.” He looked up at them in wonder. “Yes. I’m Dek.”
They hugged him, and Harley joined in.
It’s over.
Lorelei looked up from her deck. “It’s working! Systems are coming back online. Air locks are closing.”
Ally squeezed Tien’s shoulder. “You’re doing it.” Somehow the door to the control room had remained closed. Ally said a little prayer of thanks. Maybe God can hear me up here after all.
She didn’t know if Tien could hear her, though, given that she was lost in vee somewhere in the station AI’s brain. But she hoped so.
“We’ll need more air to re-pressurize the whole station, but I’m rerouting what we have to the runway.” She opened the ship’s comm. “All personnel, please relocate to the runway. We have control of ship’s systems again.” She turned to look at Maria, who nodded. “Dek, what’s your status?”
There was a long pause. “All systems returning to normal. I’m okay.” He sounded surprised.
A cheer went up from the crew in the control room.
Ally wiped a tear from her eye. I am not going to cry.
That lasted about three seconds until Lorelei took off her helmet and pulled her into a fierce embrace. “They did it.”
“Never had a doubt.”
Tien stirred at the deck. She took a deep breath and opened her eyes. She looked up at them both. “Is it over?”
Ally nodded. “We won. Harley is dead.”
Tien’s mouth quirked in the slightest of smiles. “Well… not exactly.”
Ally frowned. “What do you mean?” She decided she really hated surprises.
“I’ll explain later. But it’s a good thing.”
“Did the drone with the medicine make it out before the system froze up?” Ally had almost forgotten about it in the excitement. She felt ashamed for not thinking about her mother first.
“Let me check.” Lorelei settled into her just-abandoned seat. “Yes. Your brother has the meds.”
“Oh thank God.” She closed her eyes and said a formal prayer of thanks. When she opened them, Tien was smiling.
“What?”
Her new friend grinned. “Nothing. Just nice to see someone who takes her spiritual side so seriously. Maybe you can teach me a thing or two.”
Ally grinned. There was a reason she and Tien had met. Ally had never known anyone like her—not surprising in the small circle she ran in. But she hoped to get to know her new friend a lot better. “I’d like nothing more.”
Ghost and Hera came back to themselves at the same time. Ghost gasped, taking in a deep breath as though he’d just awoken from a hundred-year sleep. Harley would know how he felt. His back was killing him.
He stood and stretched, glancing around the room and taking in the broken spider mechs that were scattered here and there. “Your doing?”
Hera looked up at him and nodded. “You were occupied.” A smile played at the corners of her lips. She cocked her head. “Hey, I can hear again.”
“Me too. Thank the stars.”
She frowned. “Look, about what happened earlier—”
“When I said I loved you?” Ghost sighed. “I know. I felt what you felt, remember?” Heat rushed to his face. She’d seen everything… his love for her, his deep shame for what had happened those many years before. All of it. “I—”
“I know.” Her hand sought his. Her fingers brushed against his, a sign that things would work out all right between them. “It’s gonna be okay.”
He grinned and lifted her up into a big hug.
“Hey, careful with the pilot.”
He laughed and let her go. “Pilot without a ship.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah.” Hera stared at the little spider mech that had carried their friend’s core to battle. “Is Sam okay?” Ghost picked it up gently. “Sam, you in there?”
It lay quiescent in his hand.
“Wait, I think these things have a reboot switch. Right about… here.” He pushed it, and the little mech flared to life, the core glowing a healthy blue.
“Sam?”
It propped itself up on its hind legs and nodded.
Hera grinned. “Now that’s the best news I’ve had all day.”
“Even better than saving the world?”
She laughed. “Let’s call them even.”
Ghost set the mech down on the ground. “Want to get those doors open for us, little buddy? We could use a bit of fresh air.” He laughed. “It will take more than the world almost ending to keep the three of us down.”
Sam started toward the entrance.
“Yup.” Hera pulled him back, searching his eyes. “Friends?”
“Always.” It wasn’t exactly what Ghost had wanted. But it’s enough.
Ash vanquished the last of the little spider beasties, sending it flying with a squeal into the wall. Aidan leaned back against the deck, his chest heaving from the exertion. Next to him, Rai was untouched, still interfaced with the AI.
“So you’ve learned our great secret.” Rosemary appeared at the entrance to the temple, flanked by Cherry and one of the other council members.
Aidan nodded. “She’s dead. Or at least incapacitated. All these years, you lied about that.”
At his side, Ash growled.
“Yes.” Rosemary entered the hall, stepping over the smoking wreckage of one of the spider mechs. “Her vital systems still functioned, keeping Her alive, and we were able to access limited information. But She has never spoken to us.”
Aidan nodded and went to meet her halfway as the other members of the Council filed in behind her. His hand went to the bump behind his ear. “Things are going to change.” The men of the preserve lined up behind them, putting themselves between the new arrivals and Rai, their arms crossed.
Rosemary nodded. “All the pegs are dead. Whatever happened seems to have shorted them out. As for the rest… you and Rai have given us a lot to think about.” She frowned. “Mistakes have been made.”
Behind her, Cherry sniffed and looked away.
Enslaving the male half of the race was a mistake? Aidan bit his tongue. “When Rai returns—”
“Aidan’s right. Change is coming, and all of us will have to adapt.”
Aidan spun around to see Rai standing there, looking down at them all from the dais.
Behind him, a woman’s ‘mage filled the space above the deck, larger than life.
Rosemary and the other women fell to their knees, genuflecting to their newly arrived goddess.
“Her?” Aidan’s mouth fell open.
Rai nodded. “Harley.” A slow grin crossed his face. “I don’t feel so good…” Rai let go of the deck and collapsed.
In a second Aidan was kneeling next to him. He put a hand on Rai’s shoulder. “Hey, you okay?” He searched his friend’s face anxiously. If he lost Rai now…
“I will be. Just really tired.”
Aidan nodded. “Of course you are. What happened? Did we win?”
Rai nodded. “It’s over. The attack is over. We did it.” Rai grinned. “I did it too. I didn’t fail, this time.”
“No, you didn’t.” If Rai can do it, why can’t I? Aidan put away his fear, his own shame. He leaned in and kissed Rai. His lips were warm, and the contact sent a surge through Aidan’s body like he’d never felt before. Shocked, he pulled back. “Did I just… should I have done that?”
Rai grinned. “I’ve been hoping you would.” He pulled Aidan back down for a much longer, more leisurely kiss, one that promised much more to come.
When they separated, Aidan laughed with delight. A weight had been lifted from his shoulders, and the world around them sparkled with possibility. “So it’s all going to be okay?”
Rai nodded, his eyes half open, and that lazy grin returned. “Better than okay. Perfect.”